Augustines Seek Fresh Start On New LP (Album Premiere)

Augustines have only released one previous album, but the Seattle-via-New York band decided it was time for a fresh start before making their second, a self-titled effort that premieres today on Speakeasy.

It’s a stirring, soulful record, full of sweeping hooks on expansive songs that strike a balance between hopeful and melancholy. The album is the follow-up to 2011’s “Rise Ye Sunken Ships,” which the group made under the name We Are Augustines. On “Augustines,” the trio dropped “We Are” and repaired to Bridgeport, Conn., where they recorded at Tarquin Studios with Peter Katis (the National, Mates of State, Interpol)—but not before singer and guitarist Billy McCarthy, multi-instrumentalist Eric Sanderson and drummer Rob Allen took thorough stock of their lives and music.

“The core of the record is the concept of a walkabout,” Sanderson said. “Going on a journey to find—re-find—yourself after going through a life-changing experience. What do you do when you make it through the other side? When you can confidently say that you’ve worked through the tragedy? When your life actually starts to mirror the belief you have in yourself?”

The tragedy came from the deaths in close succession of McCarthy’s brother and mother when the guitarist and Sanderson were still playing in the New York band Pela, which broke up soon after. “Rise Ye Sunken Ships” was their way of working through the tragedy. What they did on the other side was revisit their beginnings—rather literally, in McCarthy’s case. He got in touch with a teacher from elementary school, which led to time spent living on her farm and writing songs. He also called his old school, which let him use the music room he recalled from when he was a child.

“I’ve always thought about the way the light came through the windows in that room and how it was cold in the winter and the smell of that piano,” McCarthy said. “And I got to go sit in there in my 30s, sitting on that stool starting all over again and that’s how the record started.”

While a sense of starting over sparked the songwriting, the actual sound of “Augustines” came from the way the musicians felt when they were playing tunes from the first album in concert, Allen said.

“By the end of it, we felt so many positive vibes and we wanted to put that into the record,” he said. “There are loads of big sing-alongs and choruses, and it’s all because, when we were playing, we’d get that back from the crowds and it was so inspirational for us.”

That sense of uplift is evidence in the outcome on “Augustines,” too, McCarthy said.

“There was nothing I could do to help any of the characters in the songs last time,” McCarthy said. “This time it’s absolutely about having the ability to help all the characters in the songs. There’s an empowerment to it.”

“Augustines” comes out Feb. 4 on Votiv/Oxcart. What do you think of the album? Leave your thoughts in the comments.